Saturday, March 31, 2018

April meeting information (and Ink Swap!)

Date: Thursday April 19, 2018
Time: 6:00pm to 8:30pm.
Place: The Community Room (Meeting Room) of the Vancouver Public Library's Oakridge branch (at the back of Oakridge Mall), 650 West 41st Avenue, Vancouver
(ie. where we had our March meeting).

Topic: YOUR 3 FAVOURITE INKS....and our twice-annual INK SWAP!

We did this topic back in 2010 (!) but given how many more ink companies there are now,
I thought it'd be interesting to reuse the topic after Carmen suggested it (thanks, Carmen!).
If you can, please bring inked pens (ie. 3 pens filled with your 3 favourite inks) to the meeting. They can be cheap pens, and if you don't have 3 favourite inks, you can bring fewer than that :)

Ink Swap---this is completely voluntary, so if you don't want to trade any old inks, you don't have to. If you want to participate, please bring inks that you want to get rid of and hopefully someone will have something in trade that you like (buying & selling inks is ok too, so I'd suggest bringing cash if you're looking to buy ink).
Ink cartridges are fine for the swap....and the ink bottles do not have to be full.

Our secondary topic is always Newest Pen-Related Acquisitions, so if you have a new pen/ink/pen case you'd like to show us, please bring it with you. Hope to see you at the meeting! Any questions/concerns, contact us at vancouverpenclub@gmail.com

Monday, March 26, 2018

Martemodena "Freedom to Love" fountain pen

My newest Martemodena pen----the beautiful "Freedom to Love" fountain pen:
I've developed a soft spot for this off-shoot of Italian penmaker Delta, so I put in a bid for one of their "Freedom" models, specifically the "Freedom to Love" pen in gorgeous marbled red acrylic with rose gold trim :
It has a nice big gold-plated steel nib that writes very well:
The model name is engraved on the cap, along with a serial # (mine is #287):
In the same Martemodena auction, I won a Martemodena Techno USB ballpoint...
...which has a handy 4GB USB flash drive:
Comparison shot of my current Martemodena "stable" (L-R):
'Chronicle' "Country" fountain pen, 'Dolcevita Federico' "Oro" rollerball, 'Freedom to Love' fountain pen and 'Techno USB' ballpoint
(~click on images to enlarge~):

Saturday, March 24, 2018

A few more March meeting pics

Some photos from our March meeting taken by Christopher R and Tony
(please click on images to enlarge)...

Photo below: Christopher's own shot of his boxed Parker '45' fountain pens and pen sets:
Tony's photo of the Parker '45' fountain pens brought in by Jerred, who did a talk on this iconic fountain pen model for our March theme/topic:
Glenn Marcus doing his presentation on another iconic pen---the Pelikan 'M800'----with Dana to his left (photo by Tony):
Tony's shot of Glenn's marvelous collection of Pelikan M800s, and an M800 owned by René (the black & grey-striped one, second from the right):
Writing sample done with the M800 "Renaissance Brown" (photo by Tony):
Many thanks to Christopher and Tony for the pics! I couldn't make it to the meeting, but I felt like I was there, thanks to your photos, and Ricardo's great blog post :)

Aloha! (PENBBS '308 Gradient' fountain pen in "Hawaii" acrylic)

A few quick shots of my brand-new fountain pen made by the Chinese company PENBBS ...
(~click on images to enlarge~)

The pen's packaging consisted of a plain black cardboard box, so I was pleased to discover it came with a very nice single-pen cloth case...
The case has a cloth label inside with the PENBBS logo and the words "since 2005"
(not visible in photo)---a nice little detail:
The pen itself is a lovely mix of swirling blues & yellows (and a bit of green) which evoke sunny Hawaii and its beautiful ocean waters...
...and what a nice surprise to see that they put a full-sized nib on it!
I haven't tried the pen yet, but at least two of my fellow pen club members (Jerred and Justin) have said how smoothly it writes. Interestingly, the cap band says '266' on it, not '308'. I (much later) found out that this wasn't uncommon as the '266' was discontinued and replaced by the '308' model. The '266' had cap threads at the nib-end of the section; the '308' cap threads are at the other end of the section.

My photos don't do it justice, but it's a beautiful writing instrument and for what I paid ($35 USD including shipping from an eBay seller from Hong Kong), it is well worth the price!

Monday, March 19, 2018

March Meeting Photos

Note: This post was written by Ricardo.

This month's Vancouver Pen Club meet was held at the Oakridge branch of the Vancouver Public Library.

This month's topics were the Parker 45, the Parker Sonnet, and the Pelikan m800.



Jerred started off with his presentation on the Parker 45. This was Parker's first cartridge-converter pen, and a huge success, being sold for four decades.



Armando then proceeded with his presentation on another Parker model, the Sonnet.


The Parker Sonnet is a more recent model, designed by Geoff Hollington to replace the then declining 75.

Jim, Glenn, Dana and René
Then Glenn presented on the Pelikan m800. He even brought information sheets for everyone.


Pelikan was the first company to introduce piston-filler pens, due to their earlier acquisition of the differential-piston patent. Their first piston-filler was launched in 1925 to great success, due to its ease of use along with the larger ink capacity.

Parker 45

Christopher's Parker 45 set





Multiple Parker 45, with a guilloche Parker Sonnet snuck in


Ricardo's m805 Vibrant Blue, Glenn's m800 Black, Brown Tortoise, Burnt Orange, Green Stripe, Red Stripe, Renaissance Brown, Blue Stripe, René's M805 Stresemann, and Sabrina's m205 Aquamarine


Glenn's Pelikan M800 Burnt Orange (2015's Special Edition)
Glenn's Pelikan m800 Renaissance Brown (2017's Special Edition)



René's Pelikan m805 Anthracite Stresemann (available since 2015)


Jerred's three PenBBS 308 and a 309.


Sabrina's limited edition Lamy Safari

Armando's Parker Sonnet pens


René's Arnold pens

Mark's Parker 61

Dana's black Pilot Custom Heritage 91, and Platinum 3776

Dana's Pilot Custom Heritage 91

Dana's Parker Vacumatic

Stuart's Parker 51

Barry's Mabie Todd Swan

The Mabie Todd Swan's flexible nib

Tony's Montblanc 149


Glenn, Dana, René, Alejandra, Mindy, and Carmen

Above: Tony, Natasha, Grace, Jerred, Mindy, Glenn and Alejandra
Above: René, Mark, Barry, Christopher, Stuart and Tony. Below: Sabrina and Carmen
Thanks to the people who prepared presentations, and to everyone who came to the meeting!